EXTRACT
FROM AUGUSTIN'S "RETRACTATIONS," BOOK
II. CHAP. 50, ON THE FOLLOWING TREATISE,

"DE
GRATIA CHRISTI, ET DE PECCATO ORIGINALI."

A TREATISE ON THE GRACE OF CHRIST, AND ON ORIGINAL SIN

BY AURELIUS AUGUSTIN, BISHOP OF HIPPO;

IN TWO BOOKS,

WRITTEN AGAINST PELAGIUS AND COELESTIUS IN THE YEAR A.D. 418

BOOK II.

ON ORIGINAL SIN.

WHEREIN AUGUSTIN SHOWS THAT PELAGIUS REALLY DIFFERS IN NO RESPECT, ON
THE QUESTION OF ORIGINAL SIN AND THE BAPTISM OF INFANTS, FROM HIS FOLLOWER
COELESTIUS, WHO, REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE ORIGINAL SIN AND EVEN DARING TO
DENY THE DOCTRINE IN PUBLIC, WAS CONDEMNED IN TRIALS BEFORE THE BISHOPS
-- FIRST AT CARTHAGE, AND AFTERWARDS AT ROME; FOR THIS QUESTION IS NOT,
AS THESE HERETICS WOULD HAVE IT, ONE WHEREIN PERSONS MIGHT ERR WITHOUT
DANGER TO THE FAITH. THEIR HERESY, INDEED, AIMED AT NOTHING ELSE THAN THE
VERY FOUNDATIONS OF CHRISTIAN BELIEF. HE AFTERWARDS REFUTES ALL SUCH AS
MAINTAINED THAT THE BLESSING OF MATRIMONY IS DISPARAGED BY THE DOCTRINE
OF ORIGINAL DEPRAVITY, AND AN INJURY DONE TO GOD HIMSELF, THE CREATOR OF
MAN WHO IS BORN BY MEANS OF MATRIMONY.

NEXT
I beg of you,[1] carefully to observe with what caution you ought to
lend an ear, on the
question
of the baptism of infants, to men of this
character, who dare not openly deny the layer of regeneration and the forgiveness
of sins to this early age, for fear that Christian ears would not bear
to listen to them; and who yet persist in holding and urging their opinion,
that the carnal generation is not held guilty of man's first sin, although
they seem to allow infants to be baptized for the remission of sins. You
have, indeed, yourselves informed me in your letter, that you heard Pelagius
say in your presence, reading out of that book of his which he declared
that he had also sent to Rome, that they maintain that "infants ought
to be baptized with the same formula of sacramental words as adults." [2]
Who, after that statement, would suppose that one ought to raise any question
at all on this subject? Or if he did, to whom would he not seem to indulge
a very calumnious disposition --previous to the perusal of their plain
assertions, in which they deny that infants inherit original sin, and contend
that all persons are born free from all corruption ?

CHAP. 2 [II.]--COELESTIUS, ON HIS TRIAL AT CARTHAGE, REFUSES TO CONDEMN
HIS ERROR; THE WRITTEN STATEMENT WHICH HE GAVE TO ZOSIMUS.

Coelestius,
indeed, maintained this erroneous doctrine with less restraint. To such
an extent
did he
push his freedom as actually to refuse, when on
trial before the bishops at Carthage,[3] to condemn those who say, "That
Adam's sin injured only Adam himself, and not the human race; and that
infants at their birth are in the same state that Adam was in before his
transgression." [4] In the written statement, too, which he presented
to the most blessed Pope Zosimus at Rome, he declared with especial plainness, "that
original sin binds no single infant." Concerning the ecclesiastical
proceedings at Carthage we copy the following account of his words.

CHAP. 3 [III.]--PART OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE AGAINST
COELESTIUS.

"The bishop Aurelius said: 'Let what follows be recited.' It was
accordingly recited, 'That the sin of Adam was injurious to him alone,
and not to the human race.' Then, after the recital, Coelestius said: '
I said that I was in doubt about the transmission of sin,[5] but so as
to yield assent to any man whom God has gifted with the grace of knowledge;
for I have heard different opinions from those who have been even appointed
presbyters in the Catholic Church.' The deacon Paulinus[1] said: 'Tell
us their names.' Coelestius answered: 'The holy presbyter Rufinus,[2] who
lived at Rome with the holy Pammachius. I have heard him declare that there
is no transmission of sin.' The deacon Paulinus then asked: 'Is there any
one else?' Coelestius replied: 'I have heard more say the same.' The deacon
Paulinus rejoined: 'Tell us their names.' Coelestius said: 'Is not one
priest enough for you?'" Then afterwards in another place we read: "The
bishop Aurelius said: 'Let the rest of the accusation be read.' It then
was recited 'That infants at their birth are in the same state that Adam
was before the transgression; [1] and they read to the very end of the
brief accusation which had been previously put in. [iv.] The bishop Aurelius
inquired: 'Have you, Coelestius, taught at any time, as the deacon Paulinus
has stated, that infants are at their birth in the same state that Adam
was before his transgression?' Coelestius answered: 'Let him explain what
he meant when he said, "before the transgression."' The deacon
Paulinus then said 'Do you on your side deny that you ever taught this
doctrine? It must be one of two things: he must either say that he never
so taught, or else he must now condemn the opinion.' Coelestius rejoined:
'I have already said, Let him explain the words he mentioned, "before
the transgression."' The deacon Paulinus then said: ' You must deny
ever having taught this.' The bishop Aurelius said: 'I ask, What conclusion
I have on my part to draw from this man's obstinacy; my affirmation is,
that although Adam, as created in Paradise, is said to have been made immortal
at first, he afterwards became corruptible through transgressing the commandment.
Do you say this, brother Paulinus?' 'I do, my lord,' answered the deacon
Paulinus. Then the bishop Aurelius said: 'As regards the condition of infants
before baptism at the present day, the deacon Paulinus wishes to be informed
whether it is such as Adam's was before the transgression; and whether
it derives the guilt of transgression from the same origin of sin from
which it is born?' The deacon Paulinus asked: 'Let him deny whether he
taught this, or not.' Coelestius answered: 'As touching the transmission
of sin, I have already asserted, that I have heard many persons of acknowledged
position in the catholic Church deny it altogether; and on the other hand,
others affirm it: it may be fairly deemed a matter for inquiry, but not
a heresy. I have always maintained that infants require baptism, and ought
to be baptized. What else does he want?'"

CHAP. 4.--COELESTIUS CONCEDES BAPTISM FOR INFANTS, WITHOUT AFFIRMING ORIGINAL
SIN.

You,
of course, see that Coelestius here conceded baptism for infants only
in such a manner
as to be unwilling
to confess that the sin of the
first man, which is washed away in the lover of regeneration, passes over
to them, although at the same time he did not venture to deny this; and
on account of this doubt he refused to condemn those who maintain "That
Adam's sin injured only himself, and not the human race;" and "that
infants at their birth are in the same condition wherein Adam was before
the transgression."

CHAP. 5 [V.]--CO0LESTIUS BOOK WHICH WAS PRODUCED IN THE PROCEEDINGS AT
ROME.

But
in the book which he published at Rome, and produced in the proceedings
before the church
there, he
so speaks on this question as to show that
he really believes what he had professed to be in doubt about. For these
are his words:[3] "That infants, however, ought to be baptized for
the remission Of sins, according to the rule of the Church universal, and
according to the meaning of the Gospel, we confess. For the Lord has determined
that the kingdom of heaven should only be conferred on baptized persons;
[4] and since the resources of nature do not possess it, it must necessarily
be conferred by the gift of grace." Now if he had not said anything.
elsewhere on this subject, who would not have supposed that he acknowledged
the remission of original sin even in infants at their baptism, by saying
that they ought to be baptized for the remission of sins? Hence the point
of what you have stated in your letter, that Pelagius' answer to you was
on this wise, " That infants are baptized with the same words of sacramental
formula as adults," and that you were rejoiced to hear the very thing
which you were desirous of hearing, and yet that you preferred holding
a consultation with us concerning his words.

CHAP. 6 [VI.]--COELESTIUS THE DISCIPLE IS INTHIS WORK BOLDER THAN HIS
MASTER.

Carefully
observe, then, what Coelestius has advanced so very openly, and you will
discover
what amount
of concealment Pelagius has practised
upon you. Coelestius goes on to say as follows: "That infants, however,
must be baptized for the remission of sins, was not admitted by us with
the view of our seeming to affirm sin by transmission. This is very alien
from the catholic meaning, because sin is not born with a man,-- it is
subsequently committed by the man for it is shown to be a fault, not of
nature, but of the will. It is fitting, therefore, to confess this, lest
we should seem to make different kinds of baptism; it is, moreover, necessary
to lay down this preliminary safeguard, lest by the occasion of this mystery
evil should, to the disparagement of the Creator, be said to be conveyed
to man by nature, before that it has been committed by man." Now Pelagius
was either afraid or ashamed to avow this to be his own opinion before
you; although his disciple experienced neither a qualm nor a blush in openly
professing it to be his, without any obscure subterfuges, in presence of
the Apostolic See.

CHAP. 7.--POPE ZOSIMUS KINDLY EXCUSES HIM.

The
bishop, however, who presides over this See, upon seeing him hurrying
headlong in so great
presumption
like a madman, chose in his great compassion,
with a view to the man's repentance, if it might be, rather to bind him
tightly by eliciting from him answers to questions proposed by himself,
than by the stroke of a severe condemnation to drive him over the precipice,
down which he seemed to be even now ready to fall. I say advisedly, "down
which he seemed to be ready to fall," rather than "over which
he had actually fallen," because he had already in this same book
of his forecast the subject with an intended reference to questions of
this sort in the following words: "If it should so happen that any
error of ignorance has stolen over us human beings, let it be corrected
by your decisive sentence."

CHAP. 8 [VII.]--COELESTIUS CONDEMNED BY ZOSIMUS.

The
venerable Pope Zosimus, keeping in view this deprecatory preamble, dealt
with the man,
puffed
up as he was with the blasts of false doctrine,
so as that he should condemn all the objectionable points which had been
alleged against him by the deacon Paulinus, and that he should yield his
assent to the rescript of the Apostolic See which had been issued by his
predecessor of sacred memory. The accused man, however, refused to condemn
the objections raised by the deacon, yet he did not dare to hold out against
the letter of the blessed Pope Innocent; indeed, he went so far as to "promise
that he would condemn all the points which the Apostolic See condemned." Thus
the man was treated with gentle remedies, as a delirious patient who required
rest; but, at the same time, he was not regarded as being yet ready to
be released from the restraints of excommunication. The interval of two
months being granted him, until communications could be received from Africa,
a place for recovery was conceded to him, under the mild restorative of
the sentence which had been pronounced. For in truth, if he would have
laid aside his vain obstinacy, and be now willing to carry out what he
had undertaken, and would carefully read the very letter to which he had
replied by promising submission, he would yet come to a better mind. But
after the rescripts were duly issued from the council of the African bishops,
there were very good reasons why the sentence should be carried out against
him, in strictest accordance with equity. What these reasons were you may
read for yourselves, for we have sent you all the particulars.

CHAP. 9 [VIII.]--PELAGIUS DECEIVED THE COUNCIL IN PALESTINE, BUT WAS UNABLE
TO DECEIVE THE CHURCH AT ROME.

Wherefore Pelagius, too, if he will only reflect candidly on his own position
and writings, has no reason for saying that he ought not to have been banned
with such a sentence. For although he deceived the council in Palestine,
seemingly clearing himself before it, he entirely failed in imposing on
the church at Rome (where, as you well know, he is by no means a stranger),
although he went so far as to make the attempt, if he might somehow succeed.
But, as I have just said, he entirely failed. For the most blessed Pope
Zosimus recollected what his predecessor, who had set him so worthy an
example, had thought of these very proceedings. Nor did he omit to observe
what opinion was entertained about this man by the trusty Romans, whose
faith deserved to be spoken of in the Lord,, and whose consistent zeal
in defence of catholic truth against this heresy he saw prevailing amongst
them with warmth, and at the same time most perfect harmony. The man had
lived among them for a long while, and his opinions could not escape their
notice; moreover, they had so completely found out his disciple Coelestius,
as to be able at once to adduce the most trustworthy and irrefragable evidence
on this subject. Now what was the solemn judgment which the holy Pope Innocent
formed respecting the proceedings in the Synod of Palestine, by which Pelagius
boasts of having been acquitted, you may indeed read in the letter which
he addressed to me. It is duly mentioned also in the answer which was forwarded
by the African Synod to the venerable Pope Zosimus and which, along with
the other instructions, we have despatched to your loving selves.1 But
it seems to me, at the same time, that I ought not to omit producing the
particulars in the present work.

Five
bishops, then, of whom I was one, wrote him a letter,[2] wherein we mentioned
the proceedings
in Palestine, of which the report had already
reached us. We informed him that in the East, where this man lived, there
had taken place certain ecclesiastical proceedings, in which he was thought
to have been acquitted on all the charges. To this communication from us
Innocent replied in a letter which contains the following among other words: "There
are," says he, "sundry positions, as stated in these very Proceedings,
which, when they were objected against him, he partly suppressed by avoiding
them, and partly confused in absolute obscurity, by wresting the sense
of many words; whilst there are other allegations which he cleared off,
-- not, indeed, in the honest way which he might seem at the time to use,
but rather by methods of sophistry, meeting some of the objections with
a fiat denial, and tampering with others by a fallacious interpretation.
Would, however, that he would even now adopt what is the far more desirable
course of turning from his own error back to the true ways of catholic
faith; that he would also, duly considering God's daily grace, and acknowledging
the help thereof, be willing and desirous to appear, amidst the approbation
of all men, to be truly corrected by the method of open conviction, --
not, indeed, by judicial process, but by a hearty conversion to the catholic
faith. We are therefore unable either to approve of or to blame their proceedings
at that trial; for we cannot tell whether the proceedings were true, or
even, if true, whether they do not really show that the man escaped by
subterfuge, rather than that he cleared himself by entire truth."3
You see clearly from these words, how that the most blessed Pope Innocent
without doubt speaks of this man as of one who was by no means unknown
to him. You see what opinion he entertained about his acquittal. You see,
moreover, what his successor the holy Pope Zosimus was bound to recollect,--
as in truth he did,-- so as to confirm without hesitation the judgment
of his predecessor in this case.

CHAP. 11 [X.]--HOW THAT PELAGIUS DECEIVED THE SYNOD OF PALESTINE.

Now
I pray you carefully to observe by what evidence Pelagius is shown to
have deceived his judges
in Palestine, not to mention other points,
on this very question of the baptism of infants, lest we should seem to
any one to have used calumny and suspicion, rather than to have ascertained
the certain fact, when we alleged that Pelagius concealed the opinion which
Coelestius expressed with greater frankness, while at the same time he
actually entertained the same views. Now, from what has been stated above,
it has been clearly seen that Coelestius refused to condemn the assertion
that "Adam's sin injured only himself, and not the human race, and
that infants at their birth are in the same state that Adam was before
the transgression," because he saw that, if he condemned these propositions,
he would affirm that there was in infants a transmission of sin from. Adam.
When, however, it was objected to Pelagius that he was of one mind with
Coelestius on this point, he condemned the words without hesitation. I
am quite aware that you have read all this before. Since, however, we are
not writing this account for you alone, we proceed to transcribe the very
words of the synodal acts, lest the reader should. be unwilling either
to turn to the record for himself, or if he does not possess it, take the
trouble to procure a copy. Here, then, are the words: --

CHAP. 12 [XI.]--A PORTION OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE SYNOD OF PALESTINE
IN THE CAUSE OF PELAGIUS.

"The synod said: 4 Now, forasmuch as Pelagius has pronounced his
anathema on this uncertain utterance of folly, rightly replying that a
man by God's help and grace is able to live <greek>agamarghgqs</greek>,
that is to say, without sin, let him give us his answer on other articles
also. Another particular in the teaching of Coelestius, disciple of Pelagius,
selected from the heads which were mentioned and heard at Carthage before
the holy Aurelius bishop of Carthage, and other bishops, was to this effect:
'That Adam was made mortal, and that he would have died, whether he sinned
or did not sin; that Adam's sin injured himself alone, and not the human
race; that the law no less than the gospel leads us to the kingdom; that
before the coming of Christ there were persons without sin; that newborn
infants are in the same condition that Adam was before the transgression;
that, on the one hand, the entire human race does not die on account of
Adam's death and transgression, nor, on the other hand, does the whole
human race rise again through the resurrection of Christ; that the holy
bishop Augustin wrote a book in answer to his followers in Sicily, on articles
which were subjoined, and in this book, which was addressed to Hilary,
are contained the following statements: That a man is able to be without
sin if he wishes; that infants, even if they are unbaptized, have eternal
life; that rich men, even if they are baptized, unless they renounce and
give up all, have, whatever good they may seem to have done, nothing of
it reckoned unto them, neither can they possess the kingdom of heaven.'
Pelagius then said: As regards man's ability to be without sin, my opinion
has been already spoken. With respect, however, to the allegation that
there were even before the Lord's coming persons who lived without sin,
we also on our part say, that before the coming of Christ there certainly
were persons who passed their lives in holiness and righteousness, according
to the accounts which have been handed down to us in the Holy Scriptures.
As for the other points, indeed, even on their own showing, they are not
of a character which obliges me to be answerable for them; but yet, for
the satisfaction of the sacred Synod, I anathematize those who either now
hold or have ever held these opinions."

CHAP. 13 [XII.]--COELESTIUS THE BOLDER HERETIC; PELAGIUS THE MORE SUBTLE.

You
see, indeed, not to mention other points, how that Pelagius pronounced
his anathema against
those
who hold that" Adam's sin injured only
himself, and not the human race; and that infants are at their birth in
the same condition in which Adam was before the transgression." Now
what else could the bishops who sat in judgment on him have possibly understood
him to mean by this, but that the sin of Adam is transmitted to infants?
It was to avoid making such an admission that Coelestius refused to condemn
this statement, which this man on the contrary anathematized. If, therefore,
I shall show that he did not really entertain any other opinion concerning
infants than that they are born without any contagion of a single sin,
what difference will there remain on this question between him and Coelestius,
except this, that the one is more open, the other more reserved; the one
more pertinacious, the other more mendacious; or, at any rate, that the
one is more candid, the other more astute? For, the one before the church
of Carthage refused to condemn what he afterwards in the church at Rome
publicly confessed to be a tenet of his own; at the same time professing
himself "ready to submit to correction if an error had stolen over
him, considering that he was but human;" whereas the other both condemned
this dogma as being contrary to the truth lest he should himself be condemned
by his catholic judges, and yet kept it in reserve for subsequent defence,
so that either his condemnation was a lie, or his interpretation a trick.

CHAP. 14 [XIII.]--HE SHOWS THAT, EVEN AFTER THE SYNOD OF PALESTINE, PELAGIUS
HELD THE SAME OPINIONS AS COELESTIUS ON THE SUBJECT OF ORIGINAL SIN.

I
see, however, that it may be most justly demanded of me, that I do not
defer my promised
demonstration,
that he actually entertains the same views
as Coelestius. In the first book of his more recent work, written in defence
of free will (which work he mentions in the letter he despatched to Rome),
he says: "Everything good, and everything evil, on account of which
we are either laudable or blameworthy, is not born with us but done by
us: for we are born not fully developed, but with a capacity for either
conduct; and we are procreated as without virtue, so also without vice;
and previous to the action of our own proper will, that alone Is in man
which God has formed." Now you perceive that in these words of Pelagius,
the dogma of both these men is contained, that infants are born without
the contagion of any sin from Adam. It is therefore not astonishing that
Coelestius refused to condemn such as say that Adam's sin injured only
himself, and not the human race; and that infants are at their birth in
the same state in which Adam was before the transgression. But it is very
much to be wondered at, that Pelagius had the effrontery to anathematize
these opinions. For if, as he alleges, "evil is not born with us,
and we are procreated without fault, and the only thing in man previous
to the action of his own will is what God has formed," then of course
the sin of Adam did only injure himself, inasmuch as it did not pass on
to his offspring. For there is not any sin which is not an evil; or a sin
that is not a fault; or else sin was created by God. But he says: "Evil
is not born with us, and we are procreated without fault; and the only
thing in men at their birth is what God has formed." Now, since by
this language he supposes it to be most true, that, according to the well-known
sentence of his: "Adam's sin was injurious to himself alone, and not
to the human race," why did Pelagius condemn this, if it were not
for the purpose of deceiving his catholic judges? By parity of reasoning,
it may also be argued: "If evil is not born with us, and if we are
procreated without fault, and if the only thing found in man at the time
of his birth is what God has formed," it follows beyond a doubt that "infants
at their birth are in the same condition that Adam was before the transgression," in
whom no evil or fault was inherent, and in whom that alone existed which
God had formed. And yet Pelagius pronounced anathema on all those persons "who
hold now, or have at any time held, that newborn babes are placed by their
birth in the same state that Adam was in before the transgression," --in
other words, are without any evil, without any fault, having that only
which God had formed. Now, why again did Pelagius condemn this tenet also,
if it were not for the purpose of deceiving the catholic Synod, and saving
himself from the condemnation of an heretical innovator?

CHAP. 15 [XIV.]--PELAGIUS BY HIS MENDACITY AND DECEPTION STOLE HIS ACQUITTAL
FROM THE SYNOD IN PALESTINE.

For my own part, however, I, as you are quite aware, and as I also stated
in the book which I addressed to our venerable and aged Aurelius on the
proceedings in Palestine, really felt glad that Pelagius in that answer
of his had exhausted the whole of this question.[1] To me, indeed, he seemed
most plainly to have acknowledged that there is original sin in infants,
by the anathema which he pronounced against those persons who supposed
that by the sin of Adam only himself, and not the human race, was injured,
and who entertained the opinion that infants are in the same state in which
the first man was before the transgression. When, however, I had read his
four books (from the first of which I copied the words which I have just
now quoted), and discovered that he was still cherishing thoughts which
were opposed to the catholic faith touching infants, I felt all the greater
surprise at a mendacity which he so unblushingly maintained in a synod
of the Church, and on so great a question. For if he had already written
these books, how did he profess to anathematize those who had ever entertained
the opinions alluded to? If he purposed, however, afterwards to publish
such a work, how could he anathematize those who at the time were holding
the opinions? Unless, to be sure, by some ridiculous subterfuge he meant
to say that the objects of his anathema were such persons as had in some
previous time held, or were then holding, these opinions; but that in respect
of the future--that is, as regarded those persons who were about to take
up with such views -- he felt that it would be impossible for him to prejudge
either himself or other people, and that therefore he was guilty of no
lie when he was afterwards detected in the maintenance of similar errors.
This plea, however, he does not advance, not only because it is a ridiculous
one, but because it cannot possibly be true; because in these very books
of his he both argues against the transmission of sin from Adam to infants,
and glories in the proceedings of the Synod in Palestine, where he was
supposed to have sincerely anathematized such as hold the opinions in dispute,
and where he, in fact, stole his acquittal by practising deceit.

CHAP. 16 [XV.]--PELAGIUS' FRAUDULENT AND CRAFTY EXCUSES.

For
what is the significance to the matter with which we now have to do of
his answers to his followers,
when he tells them that "the reason
why he condemned the points which were objected against him, is because
he himself maintains that primal sin was injurious not only to the first
man, but to the whole human race, not by transmission, but by example;" in
other words, not because those who have been propagated from him have derived
any fault from him, but because all who afterwards have sinned, have imitated
him who committed the first sin? Or when he says that "the reason
why infants are not in the same state in which Adam was before the transgression,
is because they are not yet able to receive the commandment, whereas he
was able; and because they do not yet make use of that choice of a rational
will which he certainly made use of, since otherwise no commandment would
have been given to him"? How does such an exposition as this of the
points alleged against him justify him in thinking that he rightly condemned
the propositions, "Adam's sin injured only himself, and not the whole
race of man;" and "infants at their birth are in the self-same
state in which Adam was before he sinned;" and that by the said condemnation
he is not guilty of deceit in holding such opinions as are found in his
subsequent writings, how that "infants are born without any evil or
fault, and that there is nothing in them but what God has formed," --
no wound, in short, inflicted by an enemy?

CHAP. 17.--HOW PELAGIUS DECEIVED HIS JUDGES.

Now,
is it by making such statements as these, meeting objections which are
urged in one sense
with explanations
which are meant in another, that
he designs to prove to us that he did not deceive those who sat in judgment
on him? Then he utterly fails in his purpose. In proportion to the craftiness
of his explanations, was the stealthiness with which he deceived them.
For, just because they were catholic bishops, when they heard the man pouring
out anathemas upon those who maintained that "Adam's sin was injurious
to none but himself, and not to the human race," they understood him
to assert nothing but what the catholic Church has been accustomed to declare,
on the ground of which it truly baptizes infants for the remission of sins--not,
indeed, sins which they have committed by imitation owing to the example
of the first sinner, but sins which they have contracted by their very
birth, owing to the corruption of their origin. When, again, they heard
him anathematizing those who assert that "infants at their birth are
in the same state in which Adam was before the transgression," they
supposed him to refer to none others than those persons who "think
that infants have derived no sin from Adam, and that they are accordingly
in that state that he was in before his sin." For, of course, no other
objection would be brought against him than that on which the question
turned. When, therefore, he so explains the objection as to say that infants
are not in the same state that Adam was in before he sinned, simply because
they have not yet arrived at the same firmness of mind or body, not because
of any propagated fault that has passed on to them, he must be answered
thus: "When the objections were laid against you for condemnation,
the catholic bishops did not understand them in this sense; therefore,
when you condemned them, they believed that you were a catholic. That,
accordingly, which they supposed you to maintain, deserved to be released
from censure; but that which you really maintained was worthy of condemnation.
It was not you, then, that were acquitted, who held tenets which ought
to be condemned; but that opinion was freed from censure which you ought
to have held and maintained. You could only be supposed to be acquitted
by having been believed to entertain opinions worthy to be praised; for
your judges could not suppose that you were concealing opinions which merited
condemnation. Rightly have you been adjudged an accomplice of Coelestius,
in whose opinions you prove yourself to be a sharer. And though you kept
your books shut during your trial, you published them to the world after
it was over."

CHAP. 18 [XVII.]--THE CONDEMNATION OF PELAGIUS.

This being the case, you of course feel that episcopal councils, and the
Apostolic See, and the whole Roman Church, and the Roman Empire itself,[1]
which by God's gracious favour has become Christian, has been most righteously
moved against the authors of this wicked error, until they repent and escape
from the snares of the devil. For who can tell whether God may not give
them repentance to discover, and acknowledge, and even proclaim His truth,[2]
and to condemn their own damnable error? But whatever may be the bent of
their own will, we cannot doubt that the merciful kindness of the Lord
has sought the good of many persons who followed them, for no other reason
than because they saw them associated in communion with the catholic Church.

CHAP. 19.--PELAGIUS' ATTEMPT TO DECEIVE THE APOSTOLIC SEE; HE INVERTS
THE BEARINGS OF THE CONTROVERSY.

But
I would have you carefully observe the way in which Pelagius endeavoured
by deception
to overreach
even the judgment of the bishop of the Apostolic
See on this very question of the baptism of infants. He sent a letter to
Rome to Pope Innocent of blessed memory; and when it found him not in the
flesh, it was handed to the holy Pope Zosimus, and by him directed to us.
In this letter he complains of being "defamed by certain persons for
refusing the sacrament of baptism to infants, and promising the kingdom
of heaven irrespective of Christ's redemption." The objections, however,
are not urged against them in the manner he has stated. For they neither
deny the sacrament of baptism to infants, nor do they promise the kingdom
of heaven to any irrespective of the redemption of Christ. As regards,
therefore, his complaint of being defamed by sundry persons, he has set
it forth in such terms as to be able to give a ready answer to the alleged
charge against him, without injury to his own dogma. [XVIII.] The real
objection against them is, that they refuse to confess that unbaptized
infants are liable to the condemnation of the first man, and that original
sin has been transmitted to them and requires to be purged by regeneration;
their contention being that infants must be baptized solely for being admitted
into the kingdom of heaven, as if they could only have eternal death apart
from the kingdom of heaven, who cannot have eternal life without partaking
of the Lord's body and blood. This, I would have you know, is the real
objection to them respecting the baptism of infants; and not as he has
represented it, for the purpose of enabling himself to save his own dogmas
while answering what is actually a proposition of his own, under colour
of meeting an objection.

CHAP. 20.--PELAGIUS PROVIDES A REFUGE FOR HIS FALSEHOOD IN AMBIGUOUS SUBTERFUGES.

And
then observe how he makes his answer, how he provides in the obscure
mazes of his double
sense
retreats for his false doctrine, quenching the
truth in his dark mist of error; so that even we, on our first perusal
of his words, almost rejoiced at their propriety and correctness. But the
fuller discussions in his books, in which he is generally forced, in spite
of all his efforts at concealment, to explain his meaning, have made even
his better statements suspicious to us, lest on a closer inspection of
them we should detect them to be ambiguous. For, after saying that "he
had never heard even an impious heretic say this" (namely, what he
set forth as the objection) "about infants," he goes on to ask: "Who
indeed is so unacquainted with Gospel lessons, as not only to attempt to
make such an affirmation, but even to be able to lightly say it or even
let it enter his thought? And then who is so impious as to wish to exclude
infants from the kingdom of heaven, by forbidding them to be baptized and
to be born again in Christ?"

CHAP. 21 [XIX.]--PELAGIUS AVOIDS THE QUESTION AS TO WHY BAPTISM IS NECESSARY
FOR INFANTS.

Now
it is to no purpose that he says all this. He does not clear himself
thereby. Not even they
have
ever denied the impossibility of infants entering
the kingdom of heaven without baptism. But this is not the question; what
we are discussing concerns the obliteration 1 of original sin in infants.
Let him clear himself on this point, since he refuses to acknowledge that
there is anything in infants which the layer of regeneration has to cleanse.
On this account we ought carefully to consider what he has afterwards to
say. After adducing, then, the passage of the Gospel which declares that "whosoever
is not born again of water and the Spirit cannot enter into the kingdom
of heaven"[2] (on which matter, as we have said, they raise no question),
he goes on at once to ask: "Who indeed is so impious as to have the
heart to refuse the common redemption of the human race to an infant of
any age whatever?" But this is ambiguous language for what redemption
does he mean? Is it from evil to good? or from good to better? Now even
Coelestius, at Carthage,[3] allowed a redemption for infants in his book;
although, at the same time, he would not, admit the transmission of sin
to them from Adam.

CHAP. 22 [XX.]--ANOTHER INSTANCE OF PELAGIUS' AMBIGUITY.

Then,
again, observe what he subjoins to the last remark: "Can any
one," says he, "forbid a second birth to an eternal and certain
life, to him who has been born to this present uncertain life?" In
other words: "Who is so impious as to forbid his being born again
to the life which is sure and eternal, who has been born to this life of
uncertainty?" When we first read these words, we supposed that by
the phrase "uncertain life" he meant to designate this present
temporal life; although it appeared to us that he ought rather to have
called it "mortal" than "uncertain," because it is
brought to a close by certain death. But for all this, we thought that
he had only shown a preference for calling this mortal life an uncertain
one, because of the general view which men take that there is undoubtedly
not a moment in our lives when we are free from this uncertainty. And so
it happened that our anxiety about him was allayed to some extent by the
following consideration, which rose almost to a proof, notwithstanding
the fact of his unwillingness openly to confess that infants incur eternal
death who depart this life without the sacrament of baptism. We argued: "If,
as he seems to admit, eternal life can only accrue to them who have been
baptized, it follows of course that they who die unbaptized incur everlasting
death. This destiny, however, cannot by any means justly befall those who
never in this life committed any sins of their own, unless on account of
original sin."

CHAP.
23 [XXI.]--WHAT HE MEANS BY OUR BIRTH TO AN "UNCERTAIN" LIFE.

Certain
brethren, however, afterwards failed not to remind us that Pelagius possibly
expressed
himself
in this way, because on this question he is
represented as having his answer ready for all inquirers, to this effect: "As
for infants who die unbaptized, I know indeed whither they go not; yet
whither they go, I know not;" that is, I know they do not go into
the kingdom of heaven. But as to whither they go, he was (and for the matter
of that, still is[4]) in the habit of saying that he knew not, because
he dared not say that those went to eternal death, who he was persuaded
had never committed sin in this life, and whom he would not admit to have
inherited original sin. Consequently those very words of his which were
forwarded to Rome to secure his absolute acquittal, are so steeped in ambiguity
that they afford a shelter for their doctrine, out of which may sally forth
an heretical sense to entrap the unwary straggler; for when no one is at
hand who can give the answer, any solitary man may find himself weak.

CHAP. 24.--PELAGIUS' LONG RESIDENCE AT ROME.

The
truth indeed is, that in the book of his faith which he sent to Rome
with this very letter[1]
to the before-mentioned Pope Innocent, to whom
also he had written the letter, he only the more evidently exposed himself
by his efforts at concealment. He says:[2] "We hold one baptism, which
we say ought to be administered in the same sacramental words in the case
of infants as in the case of adults." He did not, however, say, "in
the same sacrament" (although if he had so said, there would still
have been ambiguity), but "in the same sacramental words,"--as
if remission of sins in infants were declared by the sound of the words,
and not wrought by the effect of the acts. For the time, indeed, he seemed
to say what was agreeable with the catholic faith; but he had it not in
his power permanently to deceive that see. Subsequent to the rescript of
the African Council, into which province this pestilent doctrine had stealthily
made its way--without, however, spreading widely or sinking deeply--other
opinions also of this man were by the industry of some faithful brethren
discovered and brought to light at Rome, where he had dwelt for a very
long while, and had already engaged in sundry discourses and controversies.
In order to procure the condemnation of these opinions, Pope Zosimus, as
you may read, annexed them to his letter, which he wrote for publication
throughout the catholic world. Among these statements, Pelagius, pretending
to expound the Apostle Paul's Epistle to the Romans, argues in these words: "If
Adam's sin injured those who have not sinned, then also Christ's righteousness
profits those who do not believe." He says other things, too, of the
same purport; but they have all been refuted and answered by me with the
Lord's help in the books which I wrote, On the Baptism of Infants.[3] But
he had not the courage to make those objectionable statements in his own
person in the fore-mentioned so-called exposition. This particular one,
however, having been enunciated in a place where he was so well known,
his words and their meaning could not be disguised. In those books, from
the first of which I have already before quoted,[4] he treats this point
without any suppression of his views. With all the energy of which he is
capable, he most plainly asserts that human nature in infants cannot in
any wise be supposed to be corrupted by propagation; and by claiming salvation
for them as their due, he does despite to the Saviour.

CHAP. 25 [XXII.]--THE CONDEMNATION OF PELAGIUS AND COELESTIUS.

These
things, then, being as I have stated them, it is now evident that there
has arisen
a deadly
heresy, which, with the Lord's help, the Church
by this time guards against more directly--now that those two men, Pelagius
and Coelestius, have been either offered repentance, or on their refusal
been wholly condemned. They are reported, or perhaps actually proved, to
be the authors of this perversion; at all events, if not the authors (as
having learnt it from others), they are yet its boasted abettors and teachers,
through whose agency the heresy has advanced and grown to a wider extent.
This boast, too, is made even in their own statements and writings, and
in unmistakeable signs of reality, as well as in the fame which arises
and grows out of all these circumstances. What, therefore, remains to be
done? Must not every catholic, with all the energies wherewith the Lord
endows him, confute this pestilential doctrine, and oppose it with all
vigilance; so that whenever we contend for the truth, compelled to answer,
but not fond of the contest, the untaught may be instructed, and that thus
the Church may be benefited by that which the enemy devised for her destruction;
in accordance with that word of the apostle's, "There must be heresies,
that they which are approved may be made manifest among you"?[5]

CHAP. 26 [XXIII.]--THE PELAGIANS MAINTAIN THAT RAISING QUESTIONS ABOUT
ORIGINAL SIN DOES NOT ENDANGER THE FAITH.

Therefore,
after the full discussion with which we have been able to rebut in writing
this
error of theirs,
which is so inimical to the grace of God
bestowed on small and great through our Lord Jesus Christ, it is now our
duty to examine and explode that assertion of theirs, which in their desire
to avoid the odious imputation of heresy they astutely advance, to the
effect that "calling this subject into question produces no danger
to the faith,"--in order that they may appear, forsooth, if they are
convicted of having deviated from it, to have erred not criminally, but
only, as it were, courteously.[6] This, accordingly, is the language which
Coelestius used in the ecclesiastical process at Carthage:[7] "As
touching the transmission of sin," he said, "I have already said
that I have heard many persons of acknowledged position in the catholic
Church deny it, and on the other hand many affirm it; it may fairly, indeed,
be deemed a matter for inquiry, but not a heresy. I have always maintained
that infants require baptism, and ought to be baptized. What else does
he want?" He said this, as if he wanted to intimate that only then
could he be deemed chargeable with heresy, if he were to assert that they
ought not to be baptized. As the case stood, however, inasmuch as he acknowledged
that they ought to be baptized, he thought that he had not erred [criminally],
and therefore ought not to be adjudged a heretic, even though he maintained
the reason of their baptism to be other than the truth holds, or the faith
claims as its own. On the same principle, in the book which he sent to
Rome, he first explained his belief, so far as it suited his pleasure,
from the Trinity of the One Godhead down to the kind of resurrection of
the dead that is to be; on all which points, however, no one had ever questioned
him, or been questioned by him. And when his discourse reached the question
which was under consideration, he said: "If, indeed, any questions
have arisen beyond the compass of the faith, on which there might be perhaps
dissension on the part of a great many persons, in no case have I pretended
to pronounce a decision on any dogma, as if I possessed a definitive authority
in the matter myself; but whatever I have derived from the fountain of
the prophets and the apostles, I have presented for approbation to the
judgment of your apostolic office; so that if any error has crept in among
us, human as we are, through our ignorance, it may be corrected by your
sentence."[1] You of course clearly see that in this action of his
he used all this deprecatory preamble in order that, if he had been discovered
to have erred at all, he might seem to have erred not on a matter of faith,
but on questionable points outside the faith; wherein, however necessary
it may be to correct the error, it is not corrected as a heresy; wherein
also the person who undergoes the correction is declared indeed to be in
error, but for all that is not adjudged a heretic.

CHAP. 27 [XXIII.]--ON QUESTIONS OUTSIDE THE FAITH--WHAT THEY ARE, AND
INSTANCES OF THE SAME.

But
he is greatly mistaken in this opinion. The questions which he supposes
to be outside
the faith
are of a very different character from those in
which, without any detriment to the faith whereby we are Christians, there
exists either an ignorance of the real fact, and a consequent suspension
of any fixed opinion, or else a conjectural view of the case, which, owing
to the infirmity of human thought, issues in conceptions at variance with
truth: as when a question arises about the description and locality of
that Paradise where God placed man whom He formed out of the ground, without
any disturbance, however, of the Christian belief that there undoubtedly
is such a Paradise; or as when it is asked where Elijah is at the present
moment, and where Enoch--whether in this Paradise or in some other place,
although we doubt not of their existing still in the same bodies in which
they were born; or as when one inquires whether it was in the body or out
of the body that the apostle was caught up to the third heaven,--an inquiry,
however, which betokens great lack of modesty on the part of those who
would fain know what he who is the subject of the mystery itself expressly
declares his ignorance of,[2] without impairing his own belief of the fact;
or as when the question is started, how many are those heavens, to the "third" of
which he tells us that he was caught up; or whether the elements of this
visible world are four or more; what it is which causes those eclipses
of the sun or the moon which astronomers are in the habit of foretelling
for certain appointed seasons; why, again, men of ancient times lived to
the age which Holy Scripture assigns to them; and whether the period of
their puberty, when they begat their first son, was postponed to an older
age, proportioned to their longer life; or where Methuselah could possibly
have lived, since he was not in the Ark, inasmuch as (according to the
chronological notes of most copies of the Scripture, both Greek and Latin)
he is found to have survived the deluge; or whether we must follow the
order of the fewer copies--and they happen to be extremely few--which so
arrange the years as to show that he died before the deluge. Now who does
not feel, amidst the various and innumerable questions of this sort, which
relate either to God's most hidden operations or to most obscure passages
of the Scriptures, and which it is difficult to embrace and define in any
certain way, that ignorance may on many points be compatible with sound
Christian faith, and that occasionally erroneous opinion may be entertained
without any room for the imputation of heretical doctrine?

CHAP. 28 [XXIV.]--THE HERESY OF PELAGIUS AND COELESTIUS AIMS AT THE VERY
FOUNDATIONS OF OUR FAITH.

This
is, however, in the matter of the two men by one of whom we are sold
under sin,[3]
by the other
redeemed from sins--by the one have been precipitated
into death, by the other are liberated unto life; the former of whom has
ruined us in himself, by doing his own will instead of His who created
him; the latter has saved us in Himself, by not doing His own will, but
the will of Him who sent Him:[1] and it is in what concerns these two men
that the Christian faith properly consists. For "there is one God,
and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;"[2] since "there
is none other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved;"[3]
and "in Him hath God defined unto all men their faith, in that He
hath raised Him from the dead."[4] Now without this faith, that is
to say, without a belief in the one Mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus; without faith, I say, in His resurrection by which God has
given assurance to all men and which no man could of course truly believe
were it not for His incarnation and death; without faith, therefore, in
the incarnation and death and resurrection of Christ, the Christian verity
unhesitatingly declares that the ancient saints could not possibly have
been cleansed from sin so as to have become holy, and justified by the
grace of God. And this is true both of the saints who are mentioned in
Holy Scripture, and of those also who are not indeed mentioned therein,
but must yet be supposed to have existed,--either before the deluge, or
in the interval between that event and the giving of the law, or in the
period of the law itself,--not merely among the children of Israel, as
the prophets, but even outside that nation, as for instance Job. For it
was by the self-same faith. In the one Mediator that the hearts of these,
too, were cleansed, and there also was "shed abroad in them the love
of God by the Holy Ghost,"[5] "who bloweth where He listeth,"[6]
not following men's merits, but even producing these very merits Himself.
For the grace of God will in no wise exist unless it be wholly free.

CHAP. 29.--THE RIGHTEOUS MEN WHO LIVED IN THE TIME OF THE LAW WERE FOR
ALL THAT NOT UNDER THE LAW, BUT UNDER GRACE. THE GRACE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
HIDDEN UNDER THE OLD.

Death
indeed reigned from Adam until Moses,[7] because it was not possible
even for the law
given through
Moses to overcome it: it was not given,
in fact, as something able to give life;[8] but as something that ought
to show those that were dead and for whom grace was needed to give them
life, that they were not only prostrated under the propagation and domination
of sin, but also convicted by the additional guilt of breaking the law
itself: not in order that any one might perish who in the mercy of God
understood this even in that early age; but that, destined though he was
to punishment, owing to the dominion of death, and manifested, too, as
guilty through his own violation of the law, he might seek God's help,
and so where sin abounded, grace might much more abound,[9] even the grace
which alone delivers from the body of this death.[10] [XXV.] Yet, notwithstanding
this, although not even the law which Moses gave was able to liberate any
man from the dominion of death, there were even then, too, at the time
of the law, men of God who were not living under the terror and conviction
and punishment of the law, but under the delight and healing and liberation
of grace. Some there were who said, "I was shapen in iniquity, and
in sin did my mother conceive me;"[11] and, "There is no rest
in my bones, by reason of my sins;"[12] and, "Create in me a
clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit in my inward parts;"[13]
and, "Stablish me with Thy directing Spirit;"[14] and, "Take
not Thy Holy Spirit from me."[15] There were some, again, who said: "I
believed, therefore have I spoken."[16] For they too were cleansed
with the self-same faith with which we ourselves are. Whence the apostle
also says: "We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is
written, I believe, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore
speak."[17] Out of very faith was it said, "Behold, a virgin
shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel,"[18] "which
is, being interpreted, God with us."[19] Out of very faith too was
it said concerning Him: "As a bridegroom He cometh out of His chamber;
as a giant did He exult to run His course. His going forth is from the
extremity of heaven, and His circuit runs to the other end of heaven; and
no one is hidden from His heat."[20] Out of very faith, again, was
it said to Him: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre
of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness,
and hated iniquity; therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the
oil of gladness above Thy fellows."[21] By the self-same Spirit of
faith were all these things foreseen by them as to happen, whereby they
are believed by us as having happened. They, indeed, who were able in faithful
love to foretell these things to us were not themselves partakers of them.
The Apostle Peter says, "Why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck
of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But
we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be
saved, even as they."[22] Now on what principle does he make this
statement, if it be not because even they were saved through the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not the law of Moses, from which comes not
the cure, but only the knowledge of sin?[1] Now, however, the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the
prophets.[2] If, therefore, it is now manifested, it even then existed,
but it was hidden. This concealment was symbolized by the veil of the temple.
When Christ was dying, this veil was rent asunder,[3] to signify the full
revelation of Him. Even of old, therefore there existed amongst the people
of God this grace of the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ
Jesus; but like the rain in the fleece which God sets apart for His inheritance,[4]
not of debt, but of His own will, it was latently present, but is now patently
visible amongst all nations as its "floor," the fleece being
dry,--in other Words, the Jewish people having become reprobate.[5]

CHAP. 30 [XXVI]--PELAGIUS AND COELESTIUSDENY THAT THE ANCIENT SAINTS WERE
SAVED BY CHRIST.

We
must not therefore divide the times, as Pelagius and his disciples do,
who say that men
first lived
righteously by nature, then under the
law, thirdly under grace,--by nature meaning all the long time from Adam
before the giving of the law. "For then," say they, "the
Creator was known by the guidance of reason; and the rule of living rightly
was carried written in the hearts of men, not in the law of the letter,
but of nature. But men's manners became corrupt; and then," they say, "when
nature now tarnished began to be insufficient, the law was added to it
whereby as by a moon the original lustre was restored to nature after its
blush was impaired. But after the habit of sinning had too much prevailed
among men, and the law was unequal to the task of curing it, Christ came;
and the Physician Himself, through His own self, and not through His disciples,
brought relief to the malady at its most desperate development."

CHAP. 31.--CHRIST'S INCARNATION WAS OF AVAIL TO THE FATHERS, EVEN THOUGH
IT HAD NOT YET HAPPENED.

By
disputation of this sort, they attempt to exclude the ancient saints
from the grace
of the Mediator,
as if the man Christ Jesus were not the
Mediator between God and those men; on the ground that, not having yet
taken flesh of the Virgin's womb, He was not yet man at the time when those
righteous men lived. If this, however, were true, in vain would the apostle
say: "By man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead; for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." [6]
For inasmuch as those ancient saints, according to the vain conceits of
these men, found their nature self-sufficient, and required not the man
Christ to be their Mediator to reconcile them to God, so neither shall
they be made alive in Him, to whose body they are shown not to belong as
members, according to the statement that it was on man's account that He
became man. If, however, as the Truth says through His apostles, even as
all die in Adam, even so shall all be made alive in Christ; forasmuch as
the resurrection of the dead comes through the one man, even as death comes
through the other man; what Christian man can be bold enough to doubt that
even those righteous men who pleased God in the more remote periods of
the human race are destined to attain to the resurrection of eternal life,
and not eternal death, because they shall be made alive in Christ? that
they are made alive in Christ, because they belong to the body of Christ?
that they belong to the body of Christ, because Christ is the head even
to them?[7] and that Christ is the head even to them, because there is
but one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus? But this He
could not have been to them, unless through His grace they had believed
in His resurrection. And how could they have done this, if they had been
ignorant that He was to come in the flesh, and if they had not by this
faith lived justly and piously? Now, if the incarnation of Christ could
be of no concern to them, on the ground that it had not yet come about,
it must follow that Christ's judgment can be of no concern to us, because
it has not yet taken place. But if we shall stand at the right hand of
Christ through our faith in His judgment, which has not yet transpired,
but is to come to pass, it follows that those ancient saints are members
of Christ through their faith in His resurrection, which had not in their
day happened, but which was one day to come to pass.

CHAP. 32 [XXVII.]--HE SHOWS BY THE EXAMPLE OF ABRAHAM THAT THE ANCIENT
SAINTS BELIEVED IN THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST.

For
it must not be supposed that those saints of old only profited by Christ's
divinity,
which was
ever existent, and not also by the revelation
of His humanity, which had not yet come to pass. What the Lord Jesus says, "Abraham
desired to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad,"[8] meaning by
the phrase his day to understand his time, affords of course a clear testimony
that Abraham was fully imbued with belief in His incarnation. It is in
respect of this that He has a "time;" for His divinity exceeds
all time, for it was by it that all times were created. If, however, any
one supposes that the phrase in question must be understood of that eternal "day" which
is limited by no morrow, and preceded by no yesterday,--in a word, of the
very eternity in which He is co-eternal with the Father,--how would Abraham
really desire this, unless he was aware that there was to be a future mortality
belonging to Him whose eternity he wished for? Or, perhaps, some one would
confine the meaning of the phrase so far as to say, that nothing else is
meant in the Lord's saying, "He desired to see my day," than "He
desired to see me," who am the never-ending Day, or the unfailing
Light, as when we mention the life of the Son, concerning which it is said
in the Gospel "So hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself."[1]
Here the life is nothing less than Himself. So we understand the Son Himself
to be the life, when He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; "[2]
of whom also it was said "He is the true God, and eternal life."[3]
Supposing, then, that Abraham desired to see this equal divinity of the
Son's with the Father, without any precognition of His coming in the flesh--as
certain philosophers sought Him, who knew nothing of His flesh--can that
other act of Abraham, when he orders his servant to place his hand under
his thigh, and to swear by the God of heaven,[4] be rightly understood
by any one otherwise than as showing that Abraham well knew that the flesh
in which the God of heaven was to come was the offspring of that very thigh?[5]

CHAP. 33 [XVIII.]--HOW CHRIST IS OUR MEDIATOR.

Of
this flesh and blood Melchizedek also, when he blessed Abram himself,6
gave the testimony
which is very
well known to Christian believers, so
that long afterwards it was said to Christ in the Psalms: "Thou art
a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek."[7] This was not
then an accomplished fact, but was still future; yet that faith of the
fathers, which is the self-same faith as our own, used to chant it. Now,
to all who find death in Adam, Christ is of this avail, that He is the
Mediator for life. He is, however, not a Mediator, because He is equal
with the Father; for in this respect He is Himself as far distant from
us as the Father; and how can there be any medium where the distance is
the very same? Therefore the apostle does not say, "There is one Mediator
between God and men, even Jesus Christ;" but his words are, "The
MAN Christ Jesus." [8] He is the Mediator, then, in that He is man,--inferior
to the Father, by so much as He is nearer to ourselves, and superior to
us, by so much as He is nearer to the Father. This is more openly expressed
thus: "He is inferior to the Father, because in the form of a servant;"[9]
superior to us, because without spot of sin.

CHAP. 34 [XXIX.]--NO MAN EVER SAVED SAVE BY CHRIST.

Now,
whoever maintains that human nature at any period required not the second
Adam for its
physician,
because it was not corrupted in the first
Adam, is convicted as an enemy to the grace of God; not in a question where
doubt or error might be compatible with soundness of belief, but in that
very rule of faith which makes us Christians. How happens it, then, that
the human nature, which first existed, is praised by these men as being
so far less tainted with evil manners? How is it that they overlook the
fact that men were even then sunk in so many intolerable sins, that, with
the exception of one man of God and his wife, and three sons and their
wives, the whole world was in God's just judgment destroyed by the flood,
even as the little land of Sodom was afterwards with fire? [10] From the
moment, then, when "by one man sin entered into the world, and death
by sin, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all sinned,"[11]
the entire mass of our nature was ruined beyond doubt, and fell into the
possession of its destroyer. And from him no one--no, not one--has been
delivered, or is being delivered, or ever will be delivered, except by
the grace of the Redeemer.

CHAP. 35 [XXX.]--WHY THE CIRCUMCISION OF INFANTS WAS ENJOINED UNDER PAIN
OF SO GREAT A PUNISHMENT.

The
Scripture does not inform us whether before Abraham's time righteous
men or their children
were
marked by any bodily or visible sign.12 Abraham
himself, indeed, received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness
of faith.[13] And he received it with this accompanying injunction: All
the male infants of his household were from that very time to be circumcised,
while fresh from their mother's womb, on the eighth day from their birth;[14]
so that even they who were not yet able with the heart to believe unto
righteousness, should nevertheless receive the seal of the righteousness
of faith. And this command was imposed with so fearful a sanction, that
God said: "That soul shall be cut off from his people, whose flesh
of his foreskin is not circumcised on the eighth day."1 If inquiry
be made into the justice of so terrible a penalty, will not the entire
argument of these men about free will, and the laudable soundness and purity
of nature, however cleverly maintained, fall to pieces, struck down and
fractured to atoms? For, pray tell me, what evil has an infant committed
of his own will, that, for the negligence of another in not circumcising
him, he himself must be condemned, and with so severe a condemnation, that
soul must be cut off from his people? It was not of any temporal death
that this fear was inflicted, since of righteous persons, when they died,
it used rather to be said, "And he was gathered unto his people;"[2]
or, "He was gathered to his fathers:"[3] for no attempt to separate
a man from his people is long formidable to him, when his own people is
itself the people of God.

CHAP. 36 [XXXI]--THE PLATONISTS' OPINION ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL
PREVIOUS TO THE BODY REJECTED.

What, then, is the purport of so severe a condemnation, when no wilful
sin has been committed? For it is not as certain Platonists have thought,
because every such infant is thus requited in his soul for what it did
of its own wilfulness previous to the present life, as having possessed
previous to its present bodily state a free choice of living either well
or ill; since the Apostle Paul says most plainly, that before they were
born they did neither good nor evil.4 On what account, therefore, is an
infant rightly punished with such ruin, if it be not because he belongs
to the mass of perdition, and is properly regarded as born of Adam, condemned
under the bond of the ancient debt unless he has been released from the
bond, not according to debt, but according to grace? And what grace but
God's, through our Lord Jesus Christ? Now there was a forecast of His coming
undoubtedly contained not only in other sacred institutions[5] of the ancient
Jews, but also in their circumcision of the foreskin. For the eighth day,
in the recurrence of weeks, became the Lord's day, on which the Lord arose
from the dead; and Christ was the rock[6] whence was formed the stony blade
for the circumcision;[7] and the flesh of the foreskin was the body of
sin.

CHAP.
37 [XXXII.]--IN WHAT SENSE CHRIST IS CALLED "SIN."

There
was a change of the sacramental ordinances made after the coming of Him
whose advent
they prefigured;
but there was no change in the Mediator's
help, who, even previous to His coming in the flesh, all along delivered
the ancient members of His body by their faith in His incarnation; and
in respect of ourselves too, though we were dead in sins and in the uncircumcision
of our flesh, we are quickened together in Christ, in whom we are circumcised
with the circumcision not made with the hand,[8] but such as was prefigured
by the old manual circumcision, that the body of sin might be done away[9]
which was born with us from Adam. The propagation of a condemned origin
condemns us, unless we are cleansed by the likeness of sinful flesh, in
which He was sent without sin, who nevertheless concerning sin condemned
sin, having been made sin for us.10 Accordingly the apostle says: "We
beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto God. For He hath made
Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him."[11] God, therefore, to whom we are reconciled, has
made Him to be sin for us,--that is to say, a sacrifice by which our sins
may be remitted; for by sins are designated the sacrifices for sins. And
indeed He was sacrificed for our sins, the only one among men who had no
sins, even as in those early times one was sought for among the flocks
to prefigure the Faultless One who was to come to heal our offences. On
whatever day, therefore, an infant may be baptized after his birth, he
is as if circumcised on the eighth day; inasmuch as he is circumcised in
Him who rose again the third day indeed after He was crucified, but the
eighth according to the weeks. He is circumcised for the putting off of
the body of sin; in other words, that the grace of spiritual regeneration
may do away with the debt which the contagion of carnal generation contracted. "For
no one is pure from uncleanness" (what uncleanness, pray, but that
of sin?), "not even the infant, whose life is but that of a single
day upon the earth."[12]

CHAP. 38 [XXXIII.]--ORIGINAL SIN DOES NOT RENDER MARRIAGE EVIL.

But
they argue thus, saying: "Is not, then, marriage an evil, and
the man that is produced by marriage not God's work?" As if the good
of the married life were that disease of concupiscence with which they
who know not God love their wives--a course which the apostle forbids;[13]
and not rather that conjugal chastity, by which carnal lust is reduced
to the good purposes of the appointed procreation of children. Or as if,
forsooth, a man could possibly be anything but God's work, not only when
born in wedlock, but even if he be produced in fornication or adultery.
In the present inquiry, however, when the question is not for what a Creator
is necessary, but for what a Saviour, we have not to consider what good
there is in the procreation of nature, but what evil there is in sin, whereby
our nature has been certainly corrupted. No doubt the two are generated
simultaneously--both nature and nature's corruption; one of which is good,
the other evil. The one comes to us from the bounty of the Creator, the
other is contracted from the condemnation of our origin; the one has its
cause in the good-will of the Supreme God, the other in the depraved will
of the first man; the one exhibits God as the maker of the creature, the
other exhibits God as the punisher of disobedience: in short, the very
same Christ was the maker of man for the creation of the one, and was made[1]
man for the healing of the other.

CHAP. 39 [XXXIV.]--THREE THINGS GOOD AND LAUDABLE IN MATRIMONY.

Marriage,
therefore, is a good in all the things which are proper to the married
state. And
these are
three: it is the ordained means of procreation,
it is the guarantee[2] of chastity, it is the bond of union.[3] In respect
of its ordination for generation the Scripture says, " I will therefore
that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house;''4 as regards
its guaranteeing chastity, it is said of it, "The wife hath not power
of her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not
power of his own body, but the wife;"[5] and considered as the bond
of union: "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."[6]
Touching these points, we do not forget that we have treated at sufficient
length, with whatever ability the Lord has given us, in other works of
ours, which are not unknown to you.[7] In relation to them all the Scripture
has this general praise: "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed
undefiled."[8] For, inasmuch as the wedded state is good, insomuch
does it produce a very large amount of good in respect of the evil of concupiscence;
for it is not lust, but reason, which makes a good use of concupiscence.
Now lust lies in that law of the "disobedient" members which
the apostle notes as "warring against the law of the mind;"[9]
whereas reason lies in that law of the wedded state which makes good use
of concupiscence. If, however, it were impossible for any good to arise
out of evil, God could not create man out of the embraces of adultery.
As, therefore, the damnable evil of adultery, whenever man is born in it,
is not chargeable on God, who certainly amidst man's evil work actually
produces a good work; so, likewise, all which causes shame in that rebellion
of the members which brought the accusing blush on those who after their
sin covered these members with the fig-tree leaves,[10] is not laid to
the charge of marriage, by virtue of which the conjugal embrace is not
only allowable, but is even useful and honourable; but it is imputable
to the sin of that disobedience which was followed by the penalty of man's
finding his own members emulating against himself that very disobedience
which he had practised against God. Then, abashed at their action, since
they moved no more at the bidding of his rational will, but at their own
arbitrary choice as it were, instigated by lust, he devised the covering
which should conceal such of them as he judged to be worthy of shame. For
man, as the handiwork of God, deserved not confusion of face; nor were
the members which it seemed fit to the Creator to form and appoint by any
means designed to bring the blush to the creature. Accordingly, that simple
nudity was displeasing neither to God nor to man: there was nothing to
be ashamed of, because nothing at first accrued which deserved punishment.

CHAP. 40 [XXXV.]--MARRIAGE EXISTED BEFORE SIN WAS COMMITTED. HOW GOD'S
BLESSING OPERATED IN OUR FIRST PARENTS.

There
was, however, undoubtedly marriage, even when sin had no prior existence;
and for no
other reason
was it that woman, and not a second man, was created
as a help for the man. Moreover, those words of God, "Be fruitful
and multiply,"[11] are not prophetic of sins to be condemned, but
a benediction upon the fertility of marriage. For by these ineffable words
of His, I mean by the divine methods which are inherent in the truth of
His wisdom by which all things were made, God endowed the primeval pair
with their seminal power. Suppose, however, that nature had not been dishonoured
by sin, God forbid that we should think that marriages in Paradise must
have been such, that in them the procreative members would be excited by
the mere ardour of lust, and not by the command of the will for producing
offspring,--as the foot is for walking, the hand for labour, and the tongue
for speech. Nor, as now happens, would the chastity of virginity be corrupted
to the conception of offspring by the force of a turbid heat, but it would
rather be submissive to the power of the gentlest love; and thus there
would be no pain, no blood-effusion of the concumbent virgin, as there
would also be no groan of the parturient mother. This, however, men refuse
to believe, because it has not been verified in the actual condition of
our mortal state. Nature, having been vitiated by sin, has never experienced
an instance of that primeval purity. But we speak to faithful men, who
have learnt to believe the inspired Scriptures, even though no examples
are adduced of actual reality. For how could I now possibly prove that
a man was made of the dust, without any parents, and a wife formed for
him out of his own side?[1] And yet faith takes on trust what the eye no
longer discovers.

CHAP. 41 [XXXVI.]--LUST AND TRAVAIL COME FROM SIN. WHENCE OUR MEMBERS
BECAME A CAUSE OF SHAME.

Granted, therefore, that we have no means of showing both that the nuptial
acts of that primeval marriage were quietly discharged, undisturbed by
lustful passion, and that the motion of the organs of generation, like
that of any other members of the body, was not instigated by the ardour
of lust, but directed by the choice of the will (which would have continued
such with marriage had not the disgrace of sin intervened); still, from
all that is stated in the sacred Scriptures on divine authority, we have
reasonable grounds for believing that such was the original condition of
wedded life. Although, it is true, I am not told that the nuptial embrace
was unattended with prurient desire; as also I do not find it on record
that parturition was unaccompanied with groans and pain, or that actual
birth led not to future death; yet, at the same time, if I follow the verity
of the Holy Scriptures, the travail of the mother and the death of the
human offspring would never have supervened if sin had not preceded. Nor
would that have happened which abashed the man and woman when they covered
their loins; because in the same sacred records it is expressly written
that the sin was first committed, and then immediately followed this hiding
of their shame.[2] For unless some indelicacy of motion had announced to
their eyes--which were of course not closed, though not open to this point,
that is, not attentive--that those particular members should be corrected,
they would not have perceived anything on their own persons, which God
had entirely made worthy of all praise, that called for either shame or
concealment. If, indeed, the sin had not first occurred which they had
dared to commit in their disobedience, there would not have followed the
disgrace which their shame would fain conceal.

CHAP. 42 [XXXVII.]--THE EVIL OF LUST OUGHT NOT TO BE ASCRIBED TO MARRIAGE.
THE THREE GOOD RESULTS OF THE NUPTIAL ORDINANCE: OFFSPRING, CHASTITY, AND
THE SACRAMENTAL UNION.

It is then manifest that must not be laid to the account of marriage,
even in the absence of which, marriage would still have existed. The good
of marriage is not taken away by the evil, although the evil is by marriage
turned to a good use. Such, however, is the present condition of mortal
men, that the connubial intercourse and lust are at the same time in action;
and on this account it happens, that as the lust is blamed, so also the
nuptial commerce, however lawful and honourable, is thought to be reprehensible
by those persons who either are unwilling or unable to draw the distinction
between them. They are, moreover, inattentive to that good of the nuptial
state which is the glory of matrimony; I mean offspring, chastity, and
the pledge.[3] The evil, however, at which even marriage blushes for shame
is not the fault of marriage, but of the lust of the flesh. Yet because
without this evil it is impossible to effect the good purpose of marriage,
even the procreation of children, whenever this process is approached,
secrecy is sought, witnesses removed, and even the presence of the very
children which happen to be born of the process is avoided as soon as they
reach the age of observation. Thus it comes to pass that marriage is permitted
to effect all that is lawful in its state, only it must not forget to conceal
all that is improper. Hence it follows that infants, although incapable
of sinning, are yet not born without the contagion of sin,--not, indeed,
because of what is lawful, but on account of that which is unseemly: for
from what is lawful nature is born; from what is unseemly, sin. Of the
nature so born, God is the Author, who created man, and who united male
and female under tile nuptial law; but of the sin the author is the subtlety
of the devil who deceives, and the will of the man who consents.

CHAP. 43 [XXXVIII.]-- HUMAN OFFSPRING, EVEN PREVIOUS TO BIRTH, UNDER CONDEMNATION
AT THE VERY ROOT. USES OF MATRIMONY UNDERTAKEN FOR MERE PLEASURE NOT WITHOUT
VENIAL FAULT.

Where
God did nothing else than by a just sentence to condemn the man who wilfully
sins, together
with his stock; there also, as a matter of
course, whatsoever was even not yet born is justly condemned in its sinful
root. In this condemned stock carnal generation holds every man; and from
it nothing but spiritual regeneration liberates him. In the case, therefore,
of regenerate parents, if they continue in the same state of grace, it
will undoubtedly work no injurious consequence, by reason of the remission
of sins which has been bestowed upon them, unless they make a perverse
use of it,--not alone all kinds of lawless corruptions, but even in the
marriage state itself, whenever husband and wife toil at procreation, not
from the desire of natural propagation of their species, but are mere slaves
to the gratification of their lust out of very wantonness. As for the permission
which the apostle gives to husbands and wives, "not to defraud one
another, except with consent for a time, that they may have leisure for
prayer," 1 he concedes it by way of indulgent allowance, and not as
a command; but this very form of the concession evidently implies some
degree of fault. The connubial embrace, however, which marriage-contracts
point to as intended for the procreation of children, considered in itself
simply, and without any reference to fornication, is good and right; because,
although it is by reason of this body of death (which is unrenewed as yet
by the resurrection) impracticable without a certain amount of bestial
motion, which puts human nature to the blush, yet the embrace is not after
all a sin in itself, when reason applies the concupiscence to a good end,
and is not overmastered to evil.

CHAP. 44 [XXXIX.]--EVEN THE CHILDREN OF THE REGENERATE BORN IN SIN. THE
EFFECT OF BAPTISM.

This concupiscence of the flesh would be prejudicial,[*] just in so far
as it is present in us,[*] if the remission of sins were not so beneficial[*]
that while it is present in men, both as born and as born again, it may
in the former be prejudicial as well as present, but in the latter present
simply but never prejudicial. In the unregenerate it is prejudicial to
such an extent indeed, that, unless they are born again, no advantage can
accrue to them from being born of regenerate parents. The fault of our
nature remains in our offspring so deeply impressed as to make it guilty,
even when the guilt of the self-same fault has been washed away in the
parent by the remission of sins-- until every defect which ends in sin
by the consent of the human will is consumed and done away in the last
regeneration. This will be identical with that renovation of the very flesh
itself which is promised in its future resurrection, when we shall not
only commit no sins, but be even free from those corrupt desires which
lead us to sin by yielding consent to them. To this blessed consummation
advances are even now made by us, through the grace of that holy layer
which we have put within our reach. The same regeneration which now renews
our spirit, so that all our past sins are remitted, will by and by also
operate, as might be expected, to the renewal to eternal life of that very
flesh, by the resurrection of which to an incorruptible state the incentives
of all sins will be purged out of our nature. But this salvation is as
yet only accomplished in hope: it is not realized in fact; it is not in
present possession, but it is looked forward to with patience. [XL.] And
thus there is a whole and perfect cleansing, in the self-same baptismal
layer, not only of all the sins remitted now in our baptism, which make
us guilty owing to the consent we yield to wrong desires, and to the sinful
acts in which they issue; but of these said wrong desires also, which,
if not consented to by us, would contract no guilt of sin, and which, though
not in this present life removed, will yet have no existence in the life
beyond.

CHAP. 45.--MAN'S DELIVERANCE SUITED TO THE CHARACTER OF HIS CAPTIVITY.

The guilt, therefore, of that corruption of which we are speaking will
remain in the carnal offspring of the regenerate, until in them also it
be washed away in the layer of regeneration. A regenerate man does not
regenerate, but generates, sons according to the flesh; and thus he transmits
to his posterity, not the condition of the regenerated, but only of the
generated. Therefore, be a man guilty of unbelief, or a perfect believer,
he does not in either case beget faithful children, but sinners; in the
same way that the seeds, not only of a wild olive, but also of a cultivated
one, produce not cultivated olives, but wild ones. So, likewise, his first
birth holds a man in that bondage from which nothing but his second birth
delivers him. The devil holds him, Christ liberates him: Eve's deceiver
holds him, Mary's Son frees him: he holds him, who approached the man through
the woman; He frees him, who was born of a woman that never approached
a man: he holds him, who injected into the woman the cause of lust; He
liberates him, who without any lust was conceived in the woman. The former
was able to hold all men in his grasp through one; nor does any deliver
them out of his power but One, whom he was unable to grasp. The very sacraments
indeed of the Church, which she [2] administers with due ceremony, according
to the authority of very ancient tradition (so that these men, notwithstanding
their opinion that the sacraments are imitatively rather than really used
in the case of infants, still do not venture to reject them with open disapproval),--the
very sacraments, I say, of the holy Church show plainly enough that infants,
even when fresh from the womb, are delivered from the bondage of the devil
through the grace of Christ. For, to say nothing of the fact that they
are baptized for the remission of sins by no fallacious, but by a true
and faithful mystery, there is previously wrought on them the exorcism
and the exsufflation of the hostile power, which they profess to renounce
by the mouth of those who bring them to baptism. Now, by all these consecrated
and evident signs of hidden realities, they are shown to pass from their
worst oppressor to their most excellent Redeemer, who, by taking on Himself
our infirmity in our behalf, has bound the strong man, that He may spoil
his goods;[1] seeing that the weakness of God is stronger, not only than
men, but also than angels. While, therefore, God delivers small as well
as great, He shows in both instances that the apostle spoke under the direction
of the Truth. For it is not merely adults, but little babes too whom He
rescues from the power of darkness, in order to transfer them to the kingdom
of God's dear Son.2

CHAP. 46.--DIFFICULTY OF BELIEVING ORIGINAL SIN. MAN'S VICE IS A BEAST'S
NATURE.

No
one should feel surprise, and ask: "Why does God's goodness create
anything for the devil's malignity to take possession of?" The truth
is, God's gift is bestowed on the seminal elements of His creature with
the same bounty wherewith "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and
on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."[3] It
is with so large a bounty that God has blessed the very seeds, and by blessing
has constituted them. Nor has this blessing been eliminated out of our
excellent nature by a fault which puts us under condemnation. Owing, indeed,
to God's justice, who punishes, this fatal flaw has so far prevailed, that
men are born with the fault of original sin; but yet its influence has
not extended so far as to stop the birth of men. Just so does it happen
in persons of adult age: whatever sins they commit, do not eliminate his
manhood from man; nay, God's work continues still good, however evil be
the deeds of the impious. For although "man being placed in honour
abideth not; and being without understanding, is compared with the beasts,
and is like them," 4 yet the resemblance is not so absolute that he
becomes a beast. There is a comparison, no doubt, between the two; but
it is not by reason of nature, but through vice--not vice in the beast,
but in nature. For so excellent is a man in comparison with a beast, that
man's vice is beast's nature; still man's nature is never on this account
changed into beast's nature. God, therefore, condemns man because of the
fault wherewithal his nature is disgraced, and not because of his nature,
which is not destroyed in consequence of its fault. Heaven forbid that
we should think beasts are obnoxious to the sentence of condemnation! It
is only proper that they should be free from our misery, inasmuch as they
cannot partake of our blessedness. What, then, is there surprising or unjust
in man's being subjected to an impure spirit--not on account of nature,
but on account of that impurity of his which he has contracted in the stain
of his birth, and which proceeds, not from the divine work, but from the
will of man;--since also the impure spirit itself is a good thing considered
as spirit, but evil in that it is impure? For the one is of God, and is
His work, while the other emanates from man's own will. The stronger nature,
therefore, that is, the angelic one, keeps the lower, or human, nature
in subjection, by reason of the association of vice with the latter. Accordingly
the Mediator, who was stronger than the angels, became weak for man's sake.5
So that the pride of the Destroyer is destroyed by the humility of the
Redeemer; and he who makes his boast over the sons of men of his angelic
strength, is vanquished by the Son of God in the human weakness which He
assumed.

CHAP. 47 [XLI.]--SENTENCES FROM AMBROSE IN FAVOUR OF ORIGINAL SIN.

And
now that we are about to bring this book to a conclusion, we think it
proper to do on
this subject
of Original Sin what we did before in our
treatise On Grace,[6]--adduce in evidence against the injurious talk of
these persons that servant of God, the Archbishop Ambrose, whose faith
is proclaimed by Pelagius to be the most perfect among the writers of the
Latin Church; for grace is more especially honoured in doing away with
original sin. In the work which the saintly Ambrose wrote, Concerning the
Resurrection, he says: "I fell in Adam, in Adam was I expelled from
Paradise, in Adam I died; and He does not recall me unless He has found
me in Adam,--so as that, as I am obnoxious to the guilt of sin in him,
and subject to death, I may be also justified in Christ."[7] Then,
again, writing against the Novatians, he says: "We men are all of
us born in sin; our very origin is in sin; as you may read when David says,
'Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.'[8]
Hence it is that Paul's flesh is 'a body of death;'[9] even as he says
himself, 'Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' Christ's flesh,
however, has condemned sin, which He experienced not by being born, and
which by dying He crucified, that in our flesh there might be justification
through grace, where previously there was impurity through sin.''(1) The
same holy man also, in his Exposition Isaiah, speaking of Christ, says: "Therefore
as man He was tried in all things, and in the likeness of men He endured
all things; but as born of the Spirit, He was free from sin. For every
man is a liar, and no one but God alone is without sin. It is therefore
an observed and settled fact, that no man born of a man and a woman, that
is, by means of their bodily union, is seen to be free from sin. Whosoever,
indeed, is free from sin, is free also from a conception and birth of this
kind.''(2) Moreover, when expounding the Gospel according to Luke, he says: "It
was no cohabitation with a husband which opened the secrets of the Virgin's
womb; rather was it the Holy Ghost which infused immaculate seed into her
unviolated womb. For the Lord Jesus alone of those who are born of woman
is holy, inasmuch as He experienced not the contact of earthly corruption,
by reason of the novelty of His immaculate birth; nay, He repelled it by
His heavenly majesty."(3)

CHAP. 48.--PELAGIUS RIGHTLY CONDEMNED AND REALLY OPPOSED BY AMBROSE.

These
words, however, of the man of God are contradicted by Pelagius, notwithstanding
all his
commendation
of his author, when he himself declares
that "we are procreated, as without virtue, so without vice." (4)
What remains, then, but that Pelagius should condemn and renounce this
error of his; or else be sorry that he has quoted Ambrose in the way he
has? Inasmuch, however, as the blessed Ambrose, catholic bishop as he is,
has expressed himself in the above-quoted passages in accordance with the
catholic faith, it follows that Pelagius, along with his disciple Coelestius,
was justly condemned by the authority of the catholic Church for having
turned aside from the true way of faith, since he repented not for having
bestowed commendation on Ambrose, and for having at the same time entertained
opinions in opposition to him. I know full well with what insatiable avidity
you s read whatever is written for edification and in confirmation of the
faith; but yet, notwithstanding its utility as contributing to such an
end, I must at last bring this treatise to a conclusion.